Help Izzy Miller Recover from Helene House Flood

I’m a Yancey county resident raising funds for my friend Izzy Miller, whose house in the Celo community of Yancey County was flooded on Sept 28 by rising waters from Helene.

On Friday Sept 27 Izzy and their housemates understood that flooding in the basement was possible; they stayed up till 2am that night putting belongings up on pallets and watching the water rise. They went to bed believing the water level had stabilized. At 5am, 3 hours later, the water level had risen another 5 feet and was still rising. By 9am the basement was fully flooded and Izzy and their housemates were scrambling to move their belongings up out of the water. At around 10am the whole area experienced a tipping point- the waters rose 5 ft rapidly and water began bubbling up through the floor of Izzy’s room and then through the front and back door.

Mud and water filled the house and the people inside continued scrambling to rescue belongings from the rising water, until a neighbor came and said it was time to evacuate. By this time the South Toe River was raging through their yard, chest high. Izzy’s cars were fully submerged at this point. They and their housemates managed to escape to safety with their neighbor’s help.

The aftermath of this has been a lot of loss and cleanup. Today they are out there trying to mitigate the mold thats’s taken hold. There’s a long road to recovery ahead of them.

We are trying to raise funds to cover the cost of everything they’ve lost and all that they will need to rebuild their home. 2 cars, almost all the possessions they owned, repairs on the house to make it livable, mold remediation, and loss of income. Please donate whatever you can and share this fundraiser with your community.